


Rest your head close to my heart

by MsHermia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Endgame, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Tony Stark, Not A Fix-It, Pepper Potts Feels, Pepperony - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain Marvel (2019), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-06 21:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsHermia/pseuds/MsHermia
Summary: Tony Stark is stranded in space and sure that he is about to die.--A couple of Post-Infinity War scenes that were on my mind and needed to be written down before Endgame.





	1. In The Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write down a couple of post-Infinity War scenes and with Endgame fast approaching, I feel like it's now or never.
> 
> If you haven't seen the trailers for Endgame and want to steer clear of anything related to the movie before the release, you probably don't want to continue reading.

_I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one..._

He was leaning back in his chair, looking out into space. They had made it off Titan, Nebula and him. Away from the dead red sand and the crushing evidence of his defeat. His personal nightmare had finally come true. He had lived and everyone around him had died. The universe reserved the harshest punishment for his failure just for him. He was to live long enough to see how thoroughly he had failed them. His people. His friends. Pepper.

Even being as close to death as he was, he had to hold on to the possibility that she was alright. That she was still alive, blood still pumping through her veins. That the universe didn't take her. A selfish wish as any though, the wish that she would live while everyone around her disintegrated. Living with the knowledge that everything Tony had put her through, all the hours, days and months in the workshop away from her, all the worrying, all the panic attacks and freak outs made no difference. In the end, it was all for nothing. In the end, he couldn't protect her from the monster he had been preparing for. Years of their lives wasted. For nothing.

Chances were that they would never find his body. Space was vast and Earth would have enough to deal with other than looking for him. And if any of his friends, of his... teammates, were even still alive, they would assume that he had died fighting Thanos. Trying to protect the stone. Trying to protect them. But chances were that they didn't even make it to the dusting. That they died fighting to protect Earth, just like he was supposed to.

He looked out into space. For years his dreams had been haunted by the deadness of space. He had feared it for so long. The only comfort now that everything had come to pass was how his trauma had been dusted along with half of the universe. There was nothing left to fear anymore. Everything he had been afraid of had come to pass and the last few hours he would spend in this world, he would bask in the infinity of the universe for one last time. Trying to count the stars, the solar systems, all that live out there that had energized him for so long, fueled his thirst for knowledge, made his own small mistakes seem so inconsequential. But it was a comfort he didn't deserve. Because of him half of the life out there was no more. He had been prepared to give his own minuscule life for the greater good. To protect what he loved. To protect life, not just on Earth but everywhere. His mistakes didn't seem so inconsequential now.

Nebula and he hadn't talked much. They had worked alongside each other, making it to the ship, getting off that dreadful planet. Neither of them had spotted the leak in one of the ship's tanks. Of all the things Tony could blame himself for, even with his engineering genius, being out of his dept when it came to space travel might have been the one thing he could let himself off the hook for. The ship must have been damaged in the fight somehow. Maybe when the purple asshole was throwing around moons. Well, fuck. Throwing around a moon to hit _him_. So even that fuck up might as well have Tony Stark written all over it.

They were stranded on this ship and the ship was adrift. There was nowhere to go. They had no control over any of it. All they could do was wait till the lack of oxygen would make them lose consciousness, till they drifted off. And he hated it. He could have died fighting. He could have died like he had lived, all out, unapologetic and giving it all that he got. When Strange had looked into the future, is this what he had seen? Did the last move the asshole had made result in not just letting him die but taking the last shred of dignity from him? Did he see all this and decide that this was what Tony deserved instead of a quick death on the battlefield, being spared all the torturous details of what would happen to them. To his team. To the kid. Or was is just a happy coincidence that had played into the wizard's revenge against Tony for dragging him along to Titan?

It felt like it was getting late. He hadn't checked the time or the ship's status, but he could feel it. They were coming to the end.

"The sun's getting real low..." Tony whispered, chuckling to himself. Was this the euphoria speaking, set on by the lack of oxygen or was he simply losing his mind after all? He'd held out long enough through crisis after crisis. All the shit he went through and all the cracks that had left in his self-esteem, his soul, his literal heart. 

A sense of euphoria: check. 

Dizziness: check.

Chest pain, headache, shortness of breath: check, check, check.

He bent forward in his seat, elbows propped up on his thighs, face resting in his hands. This was it then. Symptoms of the lack of oxygen were starting to pile up. He was coming to the end. He moved his hands to the sides of his head, still supporting the weight of it. His palms rested over his temples and he could feel the fast and strong pulse of his blood rushing through him. He closed his eyes, slowly running his fingers through his hair, thinking of Pepper. Pepper's fingers drawing circles on his skull, twisting strands of his hair, taking his mind off the world. The color her eyes had when she woke up next to him. Her hair spread out over his chest when she would rest her head in the crook between his neck and shoulder. The touch of her skin on his. He leaned back into the chair. Opening his eyes once more to stare at the vastness lying in front of him. He felt light headed and his vision started to blur. He could have sworn there was a tail of fire in the distance. One last shooting star. He closed his eyes making a wish. Wishing for his brain to call up the strongest memories of his fiancé it could muster. The smell of her skin. The soft intimate touches he would wake up to after a nightmare. The bite marks she would leave on his neck after too many hours spent away from him. The taste of her. He was trying to recall her lips on his that last morning in Central Park, not urgently, no hot passion, but soft and familiar. She had kissed him with ease, like he would always be there to be kissed by her, to hold her, to be her's.

Not an hour later he had taken off into the atmosphere, into space where -

A shooting star was nothing more than dust or a piece of rock from space that burned up as it entered Earth's _atmosphere_. There could be no shooting stars in the vacuum of space.

His eyes flew open. The light he had seen in the distance had gotten closer and bigger. That was no rock. It was another spaceship.

He coughed trying to call out for Nebula, but his breathing was too erratic for his voice to come out clearly. For a moment he wondered if what he was seeing was really there, or if his struggling brain was messing with him. Visual disorders were a symptom of the body's lack of oxygen, hallucinations... He didn't know, but it would make sense that his brain would react like he was on a bad acid trip. He looked up when he felt Nebula's hand rest on his shoulder. How she was still up on her feet he didn't know.

"Stark, you need to calm down. Panicking only uses up more oxygen. Concentrate. Don't speak. Be calm."

Sure, he was in a space ship, about to suffocate not sure if his brain was dreaming up other life close by that was his last chance at survival. Why wouldn't he just calm down? 

He reached for her hand, then pointed out towards the light.

"I know. I see it." She shook her head, black eyes fixing his. "Might just be scavengers who'll wait for us to die and then take the ship. Might be slave traders. You'll never find out if you don't calm yourself."

He leaned back in the chair while she patted his shoulder again, taking a seat next to him. His eyes were fixed on the light moving closer and closer while Tony put all his effort and focus on his breathing. The ship was getting closer, but it wasn't fast enough. He wasn't going to make it. He could feel his consciousness slipping, his eyelids heavy, eyes stinging.

"Stark, you need to hold on. Fight it."

He blinked, shaking his head. This wasn't something he could fight. He didn't know how. How do you trick your body into thinking that it'd be fine with this low concentration of oxygen in the air? He was going to close his eyes just for a moment. Maybe time would go faster if he just closed his eyes. He tried to concentrate on his lung, calming the increasing urge he felt to breath deeper and faster when he heard a rustling sound next to him. He opened his eyes, looking over to Nebula. She had gotten up and walked up as close to the panoramic window as possible. 

"It's..." She fell silent, squinting into the distance. Tony's glance wandered over to the window, trying to follow her eye line. The ship was now recognizably a ship, but it was too far off to tell any specifics. 

"Do you..." he coughed, his vision swimming, thinking his lung was about to explode out of his chest. "You... see..."

"Shut up!" She turned on him. "Don't speak!"

He kept coughing, frowning at her as she turned back to the window.

"It's..." she squinted again, tilting her head "It's Rocket."

Tony's eyes widened and he looked back over to the approaching ship. _A rocket?_ He struggled to get his legs under himself, trying to lift himself out of the chair. Nebula turned to him, hands on his shoulders, pushing him down into the chair. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

He wheezed, closing his eyes. Nebula's hands were still on his shoulders, holding him down. She was right. He was going to die. They were both going to die anyway. At this point, it didn't matter if he'd just slip away or if they got blasted out of the sky by a rocket. Some might have called it poetic after so much of his life had been wasted building things that just blew up. When he stopped struggling, she shook him slightly.

"Stark, if they get here in time, we might live after all. I need you to calm the fuck down." Tony looked up at her. Her voice was low and restrained and he envied how much control she had over herself. His vision was blurred and he closed his eyes again, ready to give up. He didn't understand, couldn't make a connection between the things she was saying, talking about them being attacked one minute and then dangling the possibility of survival in front of him the next. He was tired and exhausted. He could feel his mind tuning out, but not in a dramatic, grandeur kind of way. He was spent and resigned to his fate. He had pushed and pushed for over a decade, tempted fate and escaped his demise again and again, but this was it. It didn't matter what Nebula thought she might see in the distance. It didn't matter to him. His path was clear, clearer than he'd ever seen it. He was done.

He drowned out the thought of other space ships, of Nebula and the universe around them. He'd promised he'd think of her and he would. He'd not waste another second on delusions and desperate deceitful hopes. As his mind went numb and his consciousness slipped away from him at last, he only thought of Pepper. 


	2. Of Heaven and Hell

Death follows you all your life until it finally catches up to you. 

Death to him just meant that life would end. One would simply seize to exist. In physical terms, it was simply the exchange of energy. The heart stops beating. Blood stops flowing. Cells in the organs lack the necessary oxygen to proliferate. The body would die, rot and by rotting release its energy back into the universe. The famous Circle of Life.

Only his body wouldn't. There was no oxygen left in the ship and bacteria would need oxygen to devour his body. His body would likely just lie there, in space. Forever.

Tony had never been a religious man. He didn't believe that people's souls _went_ anywhere when they died. He didn't believe that there was an afterlife that people went on to. He didn't believe that there was anyone waiting for him on the other side of the veil. No, the universe was cruel and conscienceless. There was no punishment for the wicked and no reward for the pious. There was just death.

So imagine his surprise when after slipping off into unconsciousness and into the cold arms of death his mind was slowly coming back online. Everything was dark, but he could hear voices. There were voices all around him. His mind couldn't grasp any specific words or make sense of what was happening, but he felt the presence of others. A cold shiver ran through him and his eyes started to sting with tears. There were voices. He'd been wrong. He'd been wrong all this time. There were people out there waiting for him, waiting to greet him. Another shiver made him flinch as it rolled down his spine and he thought of his mother. Of Jarvis. And Peter.

It was still dark all around him and he was just waiting for the light that was supposed to guide him. That's what people said, right? There would be a light he needed to follow to go on. The voices were getting louder but everything around him was still pitch black. He started to panic. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He regretted that he was so unprepared. Someone like him who'd flown so close to death so many times. How could _he_ still be this utterly unprepared to meet it? 

Suddenly it occurred to him that his eyes were still pressed shut. Once again goosebumps wandered all the way from his skull over his neck and spine down into his legs. He'd just have to open his eyes. He'd see the light and then he could follow it. To see them again. And just like that, just as his mind came to the realization that he could just open his eyes, he did. But he didn't see. He could still hear voices but everything around him seemed still so blurred. There was light around him though. On his left and his right and also when he looked down at his feet. In confusion he blinked, trying to force his eyes to work. He looked around himself in confusion. Maybe he would have to choose? Maybe there were different paths. Just as he wrapped his mind around the fact that he was actually lying down on something he suddenly realized the voices were calling his name. One of them close to his right side definitely just called out "Tony!". His head was turned and he could make out shapes and silhouettes. He blinked again, concentrated hard on what he was sure was the outline of a person calling his name. He willed his eyes to focus and when they finally did, his chin dropped and he felt a cold icy wave of fear paralyze him. He'd been wrong, he wasn't going to a better place. Of course, the Merchant of  Death would go to Hell, because why else was he staring into the face of Steve Rogers.

At first, he didn't believe it because he didn't want it to be true but as Rogers opened his mouth again, Tony knew that he was really seeing him. He did the only sensible thing there was to do: He jumped out of his skin, pushing himself off the hard surface beneath himself to bring as much distance between himself and Rogers as fast as he could, colliding with something solid on his left side. His weak left arm screamed in agony and the stab wound courtesy of Thanos sang along.

"Tony!"

He held his arm, turning to his left and realized he had collided with a person. Eyes wide and full of terror he turned back and forth a couple of times, the feeling of being surrounded freezing him somewhere between fight and flight.

"Tony, please, just calm down!"

He turned back to his left, dropping his arms in surprise as he recognized Rhodey. But that... that wasn't possible. He couldn't... nobody would send Rhodey to Hell. Was this really him or just an illusion meant to torture Tony. A sick punishment because he'd broken his best friend's back.

"Oookay, buddy, just take a breath." Rhodey has spread out his arms, slowly rocking his hands up and down in a horse-whispering kind of motion that reminded Tony of an old school western. He turned back to his right and could still see Steve Rogers standing there. He had taken a couple of steps back, the characteristic expression of disappointed worry that was painted across his face confirmed that it was truly him. Tony opened his mouth and closed it again, unable to think of a single word to say. This surely must be Hell if he couldn't even come up with a witty or at least ridiculously hilarious thing to say to all of this.

"Stark." Again, his head turned harshly to the left. There were lights flickering and continuously shining being reflected off of the metallic surface of her face. Nebula. He shook his head trying to place her in this nightmare scenario he was experiencing. 

"We didn't die."

He stared at her, blinking once, then twice. He cleared his throat but there was still nothing to say.

"Your friends found us."

He turned to Rhodey, who still had his hands up horse-wrangler style, and then turned again to look at Steve Rogers, still standing tall and firm like a mountain. His friends. The last time he had seen Rogers was when he slammed a Vibranium shield so hard into his chest that he thought that he'd come to the end. That he would die at the hands of his teammate. His Captain. His friend. He swallowed hard, looking back over to Nebula. His voice was raspy and his throat hurt as he forced the words out in her direction.

"We... we were dying."

She nodded, her always angry, unblinking eyes still firmly set on him. "We were. But then, we didn't."

He bit the inside of his lip, tempted to bite down harder to taste his own blood. To prove to himself that there was indeed blood running through his veins. He had his eyes still on her, trying to get a firmer grasp on reality. 

"But we didn't," he repeated slowly.

"The universe wasn't done with us. Which is fortunate, cause I am not done with this universe yet!"

Tony cast his eyes down to the ground. Nebula's words were sinking in, comprehension finally starting to grab hold of his mind. He nodded blinking away tears of momentary sadness, a wave of regret that he wasn't going to see those people that he loved, after all, brought on by exhaustion and grief as well as the trauma of death. Or, well, near-death. He turned back to his left, fixing his eyes on Rhodey once again. His friend let his arms fall down to his sides, his face drawn in just as much misery as Tony's own must have shown. His own despair mirrored in his best friend's face was all in took to shake Tony out of his trance. He took two staggering steps towards Rhodey and flung his arms around his friend, drawing him into a close hug. He felt Rhodey's arms settle around him, pulling him even closer. Tony suppressed a grunt of discomfort as the hard metal of Rhodey's suit was firmly pressed into him, bruising his chest. Feeling his friend softly shake in his arms still seemed more like an out-of-body experience than reality. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that he was really there. Rhodey and him on a space ship somewhere in the Galaxy. How could this even be real?

"We thought you were dead. Oh my god, I can't believe we got to you in time. I can't believe this is happening."

Rhodey's voice was only a whisper, barely audible over the rushing sound of Tony's own blood that seemed to fill his ears. Suspending the absolute belief that what was happening around him was actually happening in real life, left him detached enough to keep his own emotions together as his friend seemed to crumble in his arm. He patted Rhodey's back, still clinging close to him ignoring the increasing pain in his own chest. It didn't really matter what was real anymore. He did know one thing, after all the trauma and grief he'd experienced in space, holding his friend this close felt like a hot shower on a cold winter's day. It anchored him to his humanity. He knew letting go would result in a talk, in questions and answers. Questions of what had happened on his end, answers concerning the fate of the people he loved on Rhodey's end. He wasn't prepared to listen to what had happened on Earth yet, let alone recall what had transpired on Titan.

His eyes were cast down to the floor as Rhodey continuously muttered his relief and gratitude for finding him. Tony still had no words. He was glad not to be dead. He was. Even after all these years, all the shit he'd experienced and all the recklessness, he didn't have a death wish. He didn't, right? He would have deserved to die on Titan, yes. He should have, he was meant to die protecting people. He wasn't meant to survive all the others.

Guilt really was a bitch. And survivor's guilt was a category all on its own.

He took a deep breath as he felt Rhodey take hold of his arms to push him out of their embrace. He looked right into his friend's tear-stained face.

"Tony? Say something."

He swallowed hard. Avoiding Rhodey's eyes, he cast his to the side catching a glimpse of a bright blond head of hair. He blinked, wracking his brain for the resemblance, as she took a few steps into his direction before embracing him. He could feel her head coming to rest on his shoulder as one of the arms laid on his back pulling him in, her right hand placed at the base of his neck.

"You're one hard-to-kill son of a bitch, Tony."

He chuffed, the corner's of his mouth twitching without his consent as he recognized Nat's voice. His arms came up to snake around her small frame like it was second nature.

"So it only took the end of the fucking world for you to hug me, Romanoff?"

He could feel her tighten her embrace and he patted her back as his eyes went back over to Rhodey. She let go of him, taking a step back to look him up and down.

"You yanked out your IV. You should really get back on that stretcher." Indicating the metal platform behind him.

Tony turned around, though his mind was anywhere but that cold hard steel surface behind him. It was now drawn to that broad-shouldered super soldier still standing on the other side of it. He felt resentment flood his every cell.

"I see you didn't manage to die to save humanity either, Rogers." Spoken out loud his words seemed harsher than he had anticipated.

"Come on, Tony..." He could feel Rhodey's hand rest on his shoulder, sharply turning his head in his friend's direction. "This is not the time..."

Tony turned away, taking a step back from Rhodey to have his hand glide off his shoulder.

"Not the time..." he gave a humorless chuckle, eyes narrowed now on Rhodey. "No... I guess your right. Now isn't the time. It's way past time." He was painfully aware of how his every emotion was balled up inside his body and starting to shift. Pain to ruthlessness. Frustration to determination. Despair to hot red rage. He wasn't inclined to stop it either. He didn't want this. Any of this. He didn't even understand what they were doing here. Rhodey, fine. He got why Rhodey would want to save him. But everyone else, what the fuck were they even thinking.

"It's alright if you want to blame me, Tony. I get it, I know you're hurting. If it makes you feel better..."

"Oh fuck you and your martyr routine, Rogers." His whole body whipped round to face Rogers. 

"Tony, don't do this." Rhodey took another step towards him. "We're all hurting. Nobody is to blame and there's nothing to be gained if we fight among each other. You know that!"

Tony shook his head, another dry laugh on his face directed back at Rhodey. "Well, that's the most important thing, right? That we're together." He spread out his arms in mock celebration. "We all lost, but hey, we did it together, didn't we, Rogers? Is that what you had in mind when you wanted us to lose together?"

He turned his eyes back on Rogers just in time to see a satisfying red flush creep up the Captain's neck, spreading all across his face. Rogers was still biting his tongue, his hands balled up into fists to restrain himself but Tony was going to change that. 

"I mean, if you'd ask me, I'd rather have worked on _protecting_ us from monsters from space, but the good Captain was too busy running after his psychopathic boyfriend." His eyes were still fixed on Rogers and he could see his anger bubbling up. They'd end this here and now. For good. "I guess the team is only important when it suits the good Captain. Secrets are only okay to keep when you're the one keeping them. Isn't that right, Rogers." He took another step towards him, annoyance of Rogers' fortitude constricting his throat. "Turns out claiming to fight for _'the people'_ ," he air-quoted, "is a lot easier when you get to hide in the shadows only to come out at the last second to save the day. But saving the day didn't work out that well this time, did it."

Tony was bracing himself for Rogers counterattack. He didn't have a suit and he knew he didn't stand a chance, but all that didn't matter. All that mattered was for things to be over. He had been so ready for things to just be over.

But the kick in the teeth he had anticipated never came. Instead, a harsher blow knocked all the wind out of Tony when he saw tears covering Rogers' face. He chin dropped and his arms came to lie flat on his sides when he recognized the heaving of the super soldier's chest, the labored breathing not as the rage he had been expecting and had wanted to provoke, but as hardly stifled sobs.

"Enough of this." the booming voice that could only belong to the one and only Asgardian prince had Tony turn around in utter confusion. "Stark, come with me. We have things to discuss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading. I swear half of the angst and frustration in this comes from my personal anxiety over what will happen in Endgame. ^^ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
